Random Jottings

Oldest World Cup Fan?

My mother, who is 94 this weekend, is a sports fanatic. 

Ask her who won the 100 metres Gold at the Olympic Games ten years ago and she will tell you, ask her to explain the finer golfing points of Eagles, Birdies and Holes in One and this will be explained coherently and quickly.  She has an encycleopaidic memory for tennis matches played at Wimbledon, having watched this tournament every year since the 1960s, when I have fond memories of my mother, my sister and myself standing for hours in the free standing room on the Centre Court (now it is all seated - the dreaded Health and Safety got in on the act) watching such luminaries as Roy Emerson, Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, and then later John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe and Jimmy Connors.  Those were the days when you paid the equivalent of 30p to get into the grounds and once you were parked on the free standing room there you stayed.  Bladder control was learned early as once you left the court your place was lost so stamina was the order of the day.

This weekend my mother is coming over to me for her birthday and we are going to settle down on Saturday afternoon to see if Ingerlund can manage to overcome Portugal and get through to the semi-finals.  It will be a nerve wracking time and as we will both be screaming, yelling and swearing at the TV  it is best we do this on our own.

I am attending Ways with Words at Dartington this year and did not twig till after it was booked that I had (a) arranged to be away the weekend of the finals of Wimbledon which I never miss, and (b) also away for the World Cup Final.

When I realised I had done this, I immediately urged my friends to go out and lay a bet on England making the final as the law of sod would be in full swing as I would be stranded without a television....

Still, I am sure that Dartington will be wonderful and I can always set the video after all....

Gorgeous tecs

The original gorgeous detective as far as I am concerned is Roderick Alleyn (see my post on Ngaio Marsh).  I have read many other crime novels with the obligatory duos, Dalziel and Pascoe, Barnaby and Troy, Hastings and Poirot but none of them have stirred my heart as my beloved Roderick.

However, I have now discovered Simon Serrailler and may just have to elevate him to No 1 in the Teccy Totty stakes......

Frivolity apart, I am half way through Susan Hill's The Pure in Heart with this particular DCI and simply cannot put it down. Totally gripping.  I am now off to bed with aforementioned book and cup of tea and will no doubt be awake until the early hours of the morning finishing it.

Dame NgaioMarsh

I love detective stories and over my reading life have certainly accounted for quite a few.  When I was about twelve I remember reading Ten Little Indians (though it was then called by its much more politically incorrect title) and was totally floored by the denounment which I will not mention just in case there is anyone left in the world who has not read this particular Agatha Christie. 

After reading every single book of Mrs Christie that I could lay my hands on I then discovered Ngaio Marsh and her simply gorgous detective Roderick Alleyn.  Tall, elegant, aristocratic, sensitive, intelligent - what more could one want in a hero?   He has a bumbling MP brother George, a glamorous mother and is married to a painter Agatha Troy, not quite a self portrait of Ngaio Marsh, but based on her experiences as an artist.  Roderick Alleyn has the obligatory plod as his side kick, in this case, Detective Sargeant Fox who Alleyn rather whimsically calls Brer Fox.  Ngaio Marsh obviously adores her detective but can occasionally tip over the edge and become rather 'precious' in her portrayal, particularly with her characterisation of humble and loyal servants in the upper class houses that Alleyn frequents.  In her books the working classes don't quite say 'Cor blimey, guv, you're a real toff' but it is a close run thing.

Her books are beautifully written and quite a few of them have theatrical settings.  Dame Ngaio, as she became, more or less single handedly introduced her home country, New Zealand, to William Shakespeare and formed her own touring company which toured both North and South Islands bringing Shakespeare to the most far flung places. One of her earlier novels, Vintage Murder, is set against such a background. Others with a theatrical setting are Overture to Death, Opening Night and Death at the Dolphin.

Her powers never waned as she grew older, unlike the aforementioned Dame Agatha, whose later books were somewhat rambling, and she retained her style and sharpness to the end. Dame Ngaio, who recieved her Damehood for her services to the theatre, wrote some 30+ books, and there is not a dud among them.  Her writing spanned the 1920s up to the 1960s and she remained a best seller all her life.

Detectives have usually been served well in TV adaptations, Lord Peter Wimsey, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple being fine examples, but sadly the Alleyn Mystery series made in the 90s, while demonstrating wonderful production values, was singularly lacking in characterisation.  A grave disappointment so I just return to the books over and over again which never let me down.

Neal's Yard

I had agreed to meet my friend Marcia, over from New York, at Neal's Yard prior to our visit to the Donmar.  Though I have been to Covent Garden dozens of times, for some reason I had never made it to Neal's Yard.  What can one say?  It is trendy and twee with quirky painted windows and doors on the bijou shops and is an obvious draw for tourist and visitors.  I found it all rather self-conscious.

As it was such a lovely sunny day we decided to eat al fresco - you have to do that in London when you have the chance - and ended up at a painfully healthy and super cool salad bar, where we consumed quiche with lots of wilted rocket, sundried tomatoes and Brazilian nut bread.  You get the drift.

Though I enjoy a meal like this, I find when I am forking up bean sprouts, that a longing for a plate of chips and tomato ketchup comes upon me.

I am just a peasant at heart...

Voyage Round my Father

This play was first staged in 1970 and starred Sir Alec Guiness, sadly no longer with us, but his shoes were admirably filled by Derek Jacobi in the current revival at the Donmar Warehouse. Very hot afternoon and with the closed in space at the Donmar my hayfever kicked in with a vengeance and I was really suffering.  Armed with tissues and throat spray however, and with a magical performance to distract me, I managed.

Those of us who are old enough, know that ‘the boy’ in this play grew up to be John Mortimer, the lawyer, writer and creator of the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey.  This gives us all a connection, the feeling that we are part of the family and are watching a home video of his childhood.   His father, blinded by a freak accident when he was in his thirties, was irascible, cantankerous and difficult.  Nobody in the family was ever allowed to mention his blindness; they all behaved as if it did not exist.  He cultivated his beautiful garden even though he could not see it and used it to keep visitors at bay, whom he hated.

Yet despite his grumpiness and taciturnity, Mortimer Snr was witty, funny and, ultimately, an affectionate father.  This play is not one of those demolition jobs on a parent, but rather a loving tribute. As one critic has pointed out John Mortimer’s play is a Voyage around his Father, he never gets right to the centre  - perhaps he did not want to…

Shabby Little Shocker

This phrase was used by musicologist Joseph Kernan when he was writing about Tosca.  The ‘Shabby Little Shocker’ however, has remained an enduring feature of every single opera house in the world and is never out of the repertoire.

I was fortunate enough to see Tito Gobbi and Maria Callas in the famous Zeffirelli production at Covent Garden in 1964 which, with its two super stars, has achieved iconic status.  I have seen other Scarpias and Toscas in this production over the years which has stood the test of time, but it had become increasingly shabby and tatty looking.  It was somewhat of a surprise though to hear that it was being replaced – surely, a lick of paint and some updating and it could have carried on?  I was waiting to see if we would get a radical new production, with some trepidation I must admit, but instead we have Zeffirelli Mark II in its sets and staging which raises the question, once again, need the Zeffirelli Mark I have been replaced?

The reason for the high seat prices of this current run at Covent Garden was presumably because of the presence of Angela Georghiou, whose capricious diva like behaviour has been well chronicled in the press.  Type casting one would think, all she needed to do was to play herself!  Instead we were treated to a flirty, silly, characterisation of little depth and subtlety.  The voice is undoubtedly beautiful but it is just not big enough for Tosca and I felt very pleased I had the good fortune to be sitting in the stalls.  My normal seats at Covent Garden are much loftier and I am pretty sure that she was inaudible in the amphitheatre.  There was a palpable sense of disappointment amongst the audience and comments overheard in the interval confirmed this.

My main reason for attending was to hear Bryn Terfel’s Scarpia.  Having heard him in Die Walkure, Das Rheingold and Die Flieglende Hollander over the last year, I was looking forward to hearing his Puccini.  Tito Gobbi is one of my all time favourite opera singers and his was a hard act to follow.  Gobbi’s Scarpia with his arrogant stance and his more patrician attitude was a sophisticated study in malevolence.  Terfel is more brutish and vicious and faced with his Scarpia Ms Georgiou finally came to life and seemed to get involved – the only part of the evening she appeared to do so.  Terfel’s voice is magnificent – it seems to roll out of him with no feeling of effort or strain and his attention to diction and characterisation is superb.  He deserved a better Tosca that the one he was given.

I have not mentioned the Cavaradossi of Alvarez.  He was fine and his Vittoria in the second act rang out, with a beautiful O Dolce Mani in the final act, but for me this opera is all about Tosca and Scarpia.  You can get away with an indifferent Tosca and an indifferent Cavaradossi, but never, ever can you get away with an indifferent Scarpia. 

Indifferent is the last word one would apply to Mr Terfel….

Guilty Pleasures

Well, it has to be Mills & Boon.  The popularity of these books and the sheer volume of titles never fails to amaze.  It is so easy to sneer at these stories and yet their phenomenal success over the last 60 years and the continuing sales figures must be a source of envy to many a publishing house.

The joy of these books is their inevitability.  Boy meets girl, they fall in love, misunderstanding occurs, boy and girl separate, misunderstanding cleared up after period of heartbreak and all ends happily.  The story is timeless, think Jane Eyre, think Pride and Prejudice, surely THE original Mills & Boon with its alpha male hero and feisty heroine.

There are certain criteria to be borne in mind when reading a Mills & Boon. Never, but never, trust a red haired man.  He is usually weak and ineffective.  If the main hero has red hair, it is usually russet with gold streaks, never plain red.  Fair haired men seem to suffer pretty badly too being fairly weak and, usually, treacherous (If they are called Derek then so much the worse!)

The hero is always tall and dark.  Perhaps not conventionally handsome, but fascinating and sexy with a hawk like nose and high cheekbones.  He is slim hipped and wears his clothes with a rangy grace and is particularly attractive in chinos and a linen jacket.   His name is short and strong, Jed or Brett. Never Keith or Kevin.  He is successful in what he does, be it something in the City or a property developer but he always has a soft side and nurses his girlfriend when she is sick.

With heroines, it is clear that most Mills & Boon authors are fans of Lizzy Bennett in Pride and   Prejudice as nearly all their heroines are strong willed women who hold down good jobs in a male environment, or run their own small business.  However, they are always happy to abandon this when they meet Alpha Male and sink quivering into his arms at the end of the story.

Nowadays, sex plays a very graphic part in the novels, some of which could quite easily win the Bad Sex Award every year for some of the more lurid purple passages.  When I first started reading these, some thirty years ago, Women’s Lib was still in its early stages and women knew their place and were virgins until they married.  If there was any sex at all, it was hinted at and the old fashioned row of *********** was employed at the end of a paragraph so you were left to guess at what was going on.

People scoff at Mills & Boon and sneer at their stable of authors, yet how many writers could produce a book every two months regular as clockwork?  One of their writers, Betty Neels, was producing a book every two months up to her death a couple of years ago at the age of 90+!   Formulaic they most definitely are, but there are some pretty good writers lurking in there who will probably never be taken seriously and remain categorised as Writers of Romance for the rest of their days.

I was going to say one of my guilty pleasures (except that I feel no guilt whatsoever) is to run a bath, fill it up with foamy bubbles, lock myself in the bathroom with cup of tea and Mills & Boon and lie back in the hot water and read the novel straight through.  Totally relaxing and total bliss..

A final note to all this is that Mills & Boon used to publish school text books and other learned tomes for many years and were the publishers of Jack (Call of the Wild) London before turning to romance.

Not many people know that…..

Kiss me Quick ..... Not

I love Frinton.  It is genteel, old fashioned and with so little to do in the evenings that most of the younger population have decamped to the flesh pots of Clacton down the coast and the remaining residents are 70+. It is safe to say that Frinton is not known for its pizazz. It has only recently allowed a fish and chip shop to be opened having fought a rear guard action against such vulgar commerce for over forty years.  What it does have going for it are lovely beaches and at certain times of the day these are deserted.  From previous experience I know it is best to get there early so up this morning pack bag with towel, sun tan cream (very hot day predicted), bottle of water and book and get on the road.  I was on the beach by 9.30 am - all to myself - bliss. 

By 10.30 am the invasion began and with that unerring herd instinct displayed by all Brits on the Beach, be it Frinton or Faliraki, a family of beer bellied mother and father with their two children (Jade and Amber would you believe?  Yes you would) parked themselves next to me despite the fact the rest of the beach was empty.  Within five minutes of the tent being put up, wind breaker hammered into the beach, table, chairs and sunshade erected, cool box full of cans of beer opened, Jade and Amber started to whine, scream and hit each other.  I decamped immediately but within half an hour was once more surrounded by identi-kit families so I gave up and came home.

I am aware that I am sounding like a candidate for the programme Grumpy Old Women and my prejudices are showing but I am not apologising for it. 

I am now indoors with the curtains drawn, but windows open with a lovely gentle breeze and glass of home made iced lemonade to hand.  This is much better....

Not just The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett is the much loved children’s author of the timeless classics The Secret Garden, A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy and yet how many people know that before the wrote children’s fiction she was a highly successful author of dozens of adult novels?  Not many, I would guess.

I was one of the ignorant until one day I came across an American publication in my local library of a book called The Making of a Marchioness.  I took it home with me, sat down to read it, and did not speak to anybody for about half a day until I had finished it. 

This book features an unlikely pair of lovers - a dull, prosaic Marquis bored by being pursued by society women, and Miss Emily Fox-Seton, who cannot be described in any way as young or beautiful or even interesting. She is a good hearted, good natured woman, living by her own endeavours and, unmarried at nearly 30, facing a frightening future on her own.

She meets her future husband, the Marquis of Walderhurst, at a weekend house party where she is paying for her keep by organising a function for her hostess.  At the same party we meet Lady Agatha Slade, a society beauty, who is in a state of high anxiety and nervousness as she feels that she is failing in her duty by not marrying well and saving the family fortunes.  With younger sisters at home she knows her time on the marriage market is limited.  Despite the disparity in their positions, Lady Agatha and Emily Fox-Seton become friends, linked together by their terror of a lonely old age.   On the surface of it, The Making of a Marchioness is a Cinderella story, but Frances Hodgson Burnett was making her own comment on the very nature of the society in which it is set, in which women were at the mercy of circumstances and were only judged by whether they made a ‘good’ marriage or not.

This book was reprinted by Persephone Books a couple of years ago and has been one of their best sellers.  I am now delighted to report that they are publishing another one of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s adult works, The Shuttle.  This tells the story of the influx of American heiresses in English Edwardian society where their money, married to an English title, saved many a historic family from failure.  The title can be looked at it two ways:  that of a shuttle weaving the threads together between the two countries or, as a modern usage of the word which we are more used to, that of shuttling backwards and forwards across the Atlantic.

This book is writing of a high order, totally absorbing and in its own way, quite daring.  Without giving any of the plot away, there is a scene where our heroine has been abducted and FHB makes it clear that a rape is in the offing.  Heavy stuff at that time!

I take great pride in the fact that I have suggested the reprinting of both these books to Persephone and, while not assuming that their publication is down to me alone, feel delighted to have played a small part in their rediscovery.

Norns, gnomes and Neibelheim - in other words Wagner's Ring Cycle

I have put off writing about Wagner as I really do not know where to begin, but in the words of the great Julie Andrews 'start at the very beginning, that is a very good place to start' so here goes. 

My love of Wagner started in the 1970s when I had a very good friend Cliff, a total Wagner fanatic who was raving about a ring cycle, in English, at the Coliseum, new home of the English National Opera.  The conductor of this project was Reginald Goodall, a tiny shy gnome like little man with large horn rimmed glasses who barely spoke to anyone, and was practically anonymous.  For years he had been a repetiteur at the Opera House, beavering away in a little room at the top of the House, aptly named Valhalla, totally ignored and undervalued by the music staff at Covent Garden, until the English National Opera gave him his golden opportunity.

Purists say Wagner should only be sung in German and I have no objection to this, but for me, listening and learning my Wagner in English was the best thing to do.  No matter how well one knows the stories and how often one goes to see the operas, and I have now been to a lot of performances, the nuances in the language can pass you by.  Having the words so clearly projected in this wonderful production enabled me to really understand what was going on and helped my future Wagner watching enormously.

There were many jewels in the crown in this Cycle. Rita Hunter as Brunnhilde, despite looking like everyone's idea of an old fashioned opera diva (in other words very large) sang simply superbly.  She just stood there and the voice poured out of her.  Not a huge input in the way of acting, she was hampered for obvious reasons, but to listen to that glorious sound was enough.  Alberto Remedios was her Siegfried with a rock solid technique and a golden heldentenor voice. The picture here shows them in the last act of Siegfried. As both he and Rita Hunter were great football fans they admitted that in quiet moments when there was a gap in the singing and the orchestra were playing, they chatted about their favourite football team…

But out of all the jewels, the one who shone the brightest, for me anyway, was Norman Bailey who sang the role of Wotan.  Not only was his voice superb, but he portrayed the tortured guilt ridden god with real humanity and warmth.The last act of Die Walkure (The Valkyrie) when he bids farewell to his beloved daughter, Brunnhilde, is one of those golden passages that occur in opera and each time I saw him sing it at the Coliseum (some 12 times in all) he moved me to tears. I met Norman Bailey on a few occasions after performances when I lurked at the stage door and found him to be a delightful man, kind and thoughtful.  No diva like tantrums for him.  In some ways, his personality got in the way of some of his more 'evil' parts as when he played the governor of the prison in Fidelio.  He was just too nice and not at all believable.

Though his Wotan was magnificent, for me the night I shall always remember, is a performance of Die Meistersinger (The Mastersingers) at the Coliseum.  The performance I attended was on Midsummer's Night which is the same night on which the story of the Mastersingers is set, and it was one of those glorious, unforgettable nights in the opera or concert hall that only happen very occasionally.  The conductor will lift his baton and suddenly by some strange osmosis everyone just knows that this is going to be a special occasion.  The role of Han Sachs fitted Norman Bailey like a glove, the wise cobbler living in Nuremburg, and when he was on stage he was not Norman Bailey, he WAS Han Sachs.  The applause at the end of this performance went on for some 45 minutes and I emerged into St Martin's Lane in a state of total bliss and walked home about six feet above the ground.

Since then I have been fortunate to hear Bryn Terfel sing in the Ring Cycle and I think he is the best Wotan since Norman Bailey, but that is another story.....